Revolutionizing Operational Efficiency in the Oil & Gas industry with Aspen Fidelis

The oil and gas industry is facing unprecedented challenges in 2025. From fluctuating global energy demand to rising production costs, companies are pressured to maximize efficiency while maintaining profitability. Enter AspenTech’s Aspen Fidelis, a cutting-edge reliability modeling tool that empowers oil and gas operators to make smarter, faster decisions that drive operational excellence. 

The Efficiency Challenge 

Operational efficiency has always been a cornerstone of success in oil and gas. However, the complexity of modern energy systems, aging infrastructure, and unpredictable market dynamics have made it increasingly difficult for companies to identify bottlenecks and optimize processes.  

The complexity stems from the fact that there are more interconnected assets upstream, midstream and downstream with a mix of legacy equipment and digital technologies. Increased regulatory pressures mixed with the high volatility in oil prices and geopolitical risk add to the complication. 

Traditional analysis methods like Reliability, Availability, and Maintainability (RAM), Reliability-Centered Maintenance (RCM), and (Failure Modes and Effects Analysis) FMEA, often take months to complete. Once the analysis is complete the situation may have already changed, making the results outdated. Even siloed departments (maintenance, operations, planning) may struggle to align their decisions fast enough. All these leave businesses unable to respond quickly to changing conditions. 

How Aspen Fidelis Solves the Problem 

Aspen Fidelis is changing the game for oil and gas companies looking to run leaner and smarter. Instead of relying on slow, manual analysis, it uses advanced system simulations to model how an entire facility performs—from upstream production to downstream processing. This helps teams spot where the processes are bogging down, whether it’s a piece of equipment holding back flow or maintenance schedules causing unplanned downtime. 

With Fidelis, you can test out different operational strategies and immediately see the impact—before making expensive changes. Whether you’re trying to push more capacity, reduce costs, or just improve reliability, it gives you real, data-backed insights that drive measurable gains across your operation. 

Aspen Fidelis employs a systematic approach to analyze operational bottlenecks through five key steps: 

System-Wide Modeling

Fidelis builds a smart digital version of your whole production system. It connects all the equipment, process flows, and how everything works together. It even factors in real-world changes like aging equipment, seasonal shifts, and backup flow routes. 

Monte Carlo Simulation

Fidelis runs thousands of “what-if” scenarios using probability-based failure data to see how random events—like equipment breakdowns or supply issues—might affect the whole system. This helps spot both the everyday hiccups and those rare, big problems that could really throw things off. 

Dynamic Bottleneck Detection

The tool keeps an eye on where flow gets stuck by running real-time simulations. It shows how bottlenecks move between different pieces of equipment depending on things like maintenance or changes in orders. It also measures how much production is lost at each bottleneck. 

Root Cause Analysis

By tracing failures, Fidelis figures out what’s causing the problem first (like mechanical breakdowns) and what’s just a side effect (like running low on backup inventory). It also spots parts that are over designed or assets that aren’t being used enough by analyzing how things flow through the process. 

Business Value Analysis

Each bottleneck is measured in dollars, looking at both the immediate losses from downtime and extra costs like penalties or missed deals. This helps you focus on fixing the issues that’ll give the best return on investment—not just the ones that seem the worst technically. 

The integration with Aspen Mtell® adds predictive maintenance data to these simulations, creating a closed-loop system that updates bottleneck predictions based on real equipment health metrics.  

Discover how to turn maintenance from a reactive expense into a proactive source of value. Our free white paper, Delivering on the Promise of Prescriptive Maintenance, explains how asset performance management can boost equipment reliability, increase uptime, and unlock hidden productivity. Learn how to move beyond traditional, unpredictable maintenance with smarter strategies that deliver real results. 

Real-World Benefits: Case Study 

One major oil producer seeking to focus on bottlenecks in its hydrocarbon supply chain recently leveraged Aspen Fidelis. The results were impressive; they reduced analysis time from months to weeks which enabled real-time forecasting. The company was also able to deliver sharper identification of operational bottlenecks by simulating flows across the entire system – not just individual assets – enabling engineers to pinpoint where the constraints occurred. They were able to target specific bottlenecks, schedule maintenance around those constraints, improve throughput, and reduce downtime. This translated into millions of dollars in additional revenue while reducing operational costs by 5 to 15%. 

For example, if the annual operating cost for a mid to large Upstream Oil Producer was about $300 million, a 10% operational cost reduction would yield $30 million per year in savings. 

The path to Operational Efficiency with Aspen Fidelis is straightforward once a company can recognize the challenges that create bottlenecks, reduce throughput and drive-up costs. This path results in the ability for a company to make informed, fast decisions. Maintenance schedules become smarter, operations teams can re-route or re-allocate with confidence, and leaders can make decisions based on simulation-backed ROI – not guesswork. 

Key Features of Aspen Fidelis 

Smart system modeling

Easily simulate how your entire operation runs—accounting for real-world complexity like aging assets, flow changes, and maintenance events. 

Try out “what-if” scenarios

Want to see what happens if a compressor fails or a pipeline reroutes? Run different situations to figure out the smartest move before making any changes. 

Optimize costs, not just performance

Strike the right balance between capital and operating expenses so you get the best return—whether you’re upgrading equipment or shifting schedules. 

Easy to use, even for non-experts

With step-by-step workflows and ready-to-go templates, you don’t have to be a modeling expert to get valuable insights fast. 

Aspen Fidelis is more than just a tool; it’s a strategic partner for companies looking to thrive in an increasingly competitive industry. By harnessing its capabilities, operators can turn challenges into opportunities and set themselves apart. TRM has been working with clients and their data sets for many years across industries. Contact us so we can show you Aspen Fidelis in action and what it is capable of in the context of your operations and collected data. You will be impressed with what the solutions deliver and clearly see how Aspen Fidelis can improve your approach to Process Simulation.